“It’s very easy for someone to be critical in isolation of one decision, and there is merit either way of having a World Cup event with more or less teams, but I think on balance the opportunity that flows from more teams being able to play in the Twenty20 event is a real positive for the game.”

“Personally, I see Twenty20 as being the opportunity for developing nations, associates and affiliate countries to really focus on the contribution they can make at a high-performance elite level,” he added.

On current rankings, nations including Canada, Ireland, Kenya and the Netherlands would struggle to qualify for the 2015 World Cup, which will be jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand.